Homestead Update and the High Price of Eggs

I've been reading a lot of people complaining about the price of eggs lately. I went grocery shopping the other day and was shocked to see grocery brand eggs at nearly $5 a dozen.

Meanwhile, my girls have been laying steadily since December, so much so, that I'm making eggs for the dogs' breakfast.

My niece asked me about how I'm protecting my chickens against bird flu. It's not really an issue for us because our chickens don't come in contact with infected wild birds.

In fact, my chickens live in an aviary type of compound. Because of our high predator population (coyotes, foxes, raccoons, and hawks) we need to keep them contained.

Unlike inflation, there's nothing you can do about disease wiping out your resources. Since 2022, commercial chicken farms have been trying to prevent infection from taking hold, but if even one person forgets to disinfect his equipment or himself when entering a chicken battery, one infected bird can force operators to kill millions just to stop the spread of infection.

It's not just the US either. Other countries are having the same problem.

Hence, high egg prices.

Aside from not eating eggs, there are ways to substitute an egg in a recipe.

For baking, substitute mashed banana, applesauce, 1/4 cup of yogurt or buttermilk (per egg) for binding the other ingredients.

I've read of people using mayonnaise instead of eggs for cakes. This makes sense since mayo has eggs in it.

There's a new product on the market called, Just Egg, made from mung beans. And there's Bob's Red Mill Egg Replacer. I love Bob's Red Mill products, so I can recommend that one.

I give eggs away whenever I have too many, but I won't sell them because it's too much of a hassle. I never know how many extra eggs I'll have from week to week. I'd rather just give them away to friends.

How are egg prices by you? Do you tend to use a lot of eggs per week?

***

We worked like mad people this past week. I turned over and weeded 18 raised beds. Then I proceeded to rake leaves. I still have a lot more raking to do, but I got the most important area cleared for my next project and that's to do some landscaping in my backyard.

While I was shoveling and weeding, Greg was fixing wagons, raised beds, and building a new exhaust fan system for my greenhouse.

We planted a new pear tree and some new grape vines. I also picked up a peach tree, but I'm not sure where to plant that yet. I also planted two extra-large beds of strawberries and asparagus.

We had great weather last week, which is why we were running around like crazy trying to get our outside jobs done. This week, the cold weather returns. I'll start my seeds this week.

I'm hoping it won't get too cold but it looks like a couple of nights will get pretty bad. As normal, we'll jump back to warmer temps after this cold front passes.

You can't trust Texas weather during February. You can be in the 80s one day, then dip into the low 30s at night.

My goal is to get all my outside jobs done before the end of the month so I can put plants out by the middle of March. Then I can concentrate on the garage sale.

Most of my sheltered veggie plants survived winter, so hopefully, we'll get some early peppers and tomatoes while we're waiting for the big garden to produce.

I'm on the hunt for a weatherproof garden bench. Years ago, we stopped at a garage sale and the people were desperate to sell a solid teak seating set. I wanted it so badly, but we were in the middle of moving and all my stuff was in storage. There wasn't room to store one more thing so I had to pass. 

I still think about that teak set. I would've rented another storage space, but we were in such a bind and many things were up in the air, including whether the sale for our new home would go through because of a survey blunder. 

There are times when you just have to step back and let things settle down. 

For now, everything is progressing on schedule. If the weather cooperates we should be off to a fine start.

How is February treating you?  What plans do you have for this year?

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